Mother who helped rugby son’s suicide speaks out

The mother of a young rugby star who killed himself at a Swiss clinic after he became paralysed today spoke for the first time since his death.

Daniel James, 23, became the youngest person to die in an assisted suicide. He went to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland last September after a rugby accident had left him paralysed from the chest down.

At the launch of an initiative to raise awareness about spinal injuries in sport, Julie James said her son told her just before he died to "live life". "Dan said to me, 'I hope you're not going to be spending time being a campaigner. Just get on and live your life,'" she said.

Daniel, a former England under-16 player, was training with Nuneaton Rugby Club in March 2007 when a scrum collapsed and his spine was dislocated. He persuaded his parents to help him die after battling to adjust for 16 months.

Mrs James, 42, from Worcester, added: "Don't think of him as a tragic case. He would have hated that. He was larger than life, had a wicked sense of humour. Please let him not just be known as the youngest assisted suicide case but make his life make a difference to others."

She and her husband Mark want boards displayed at sporting events telling people how to treat potential spinal injuries. She spoke of the family's "despair" in the early weeks after the accident and belief that Dan's "prognosis could have been better had more been done early on". But she said she was not criticising his treatment pitchside or at Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

One hundred MPs have signed an early day motion for a debate on assisted suicide. Daniel's parents, who went with him to the clinic and paid Dignitas, were not prosecuted over his death.